


Game Over (Like the Rifle Remix)

by FloraStuart



Category: Battlestar Galactica, Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-05
Updated: 2012-04-05
Packaged: 2017-11-03 02:57:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloraStuart/pseuds/FloraStuart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's not very good at this game yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Game Over (Like the Rifle Remix)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the characters or the universe, I'm not making any money off of this, please don't sue.
> 
> Written for Remix 2007. Original story - "Brothers" by Sabaceanbabe.
> 
> HUGE thanks to my wonderful beta-reader, Hossgal, not only for editing and poking me to get it done on time but also for coming up with my Remix subtitle - it and she are both made of awesome!

Mama and Daddy said _stay here, we'll be back in an hour or two if there's no trouble._

A bench in Caprica City's northwest spaceport, between a light liner's gangplank and a midrange cargo-hauler. Just close enough to watch the Fleet woman standing guard by the boxy, gleaming Raptor, her crisp steps back-and-forth, back-and-forth, her rifle cradled in her arms.

Tom tries to copy her smart about-face, gets his feet tangled together and comes back to sit down. Luke sits on the bench, playing "Cylon Raiders" on his new game-viewer, while Tom bounces and fidgets beside him, pesters for a turn, pesters for Luke's attention.

"Want to see the spaceships!" Tom is still scared of the milling people, tall grownups pushing and rushing to ticket counters at the other end of the docking corridor, the booming voice of the loudspeaker. He wants his big brother with him.

The badges around their necks mark them as spacers' kids; the deck chief and his crew are watching out for them while Mama and Daddy are working in another section, but they know this port, and they are wise to the decks and know better than to wander into the path of the baggage trolleys or the hydraulic loaders.

"When I finish this game," Luke promises, distracted. It won't be long; the viewer is new, a present from Daddy for his eighth birthday, and he's not very good at this game yet. The Cylons always win.

But he loves the speed, the slim, deadly Vipers flashing across the tiny, hand-sized screen. He loves the bursts of fire and the menacing shapes of the Cylon Raiders, like grey claws against the dark.

With two fingers and a keypad, five keys in all, he can be a Fleet pilot. Until the Cylons win again – in three minutes, this time. He's getting better. Last game only took two minutes thirty seconds.

When the Cylons win, there's a tinny-sounding explosion, barely audible above the announcer's voice calling _all aboard, 10:15 to Picon._

Then the screen goes black, and tiny white letters ask PLAY AGAIN Y/N?

*

When the Cylons win for real, Tom and Luke are crouched on the floor of a cleaning closet, sandwiched between the mop bucket and the wall.

_Want to see the spaceships!_ Tom had said, and Luke could resist his brother's pouting only so long. Five seconds to scurry up the light liner's gangplank, and they dove into the ship's interior. Hearts pounding and giddy with excitement, they'd somehow taken a wrong turn and ended up in crew quarters, wandering down a grey service corridor when they had to hide from a passing crewman.

He felt his heart drop to his stomach minutes later, when the engines engaged and a booming voice announced liftoff.

Later, he remembers images flashing through his head – Mama and Daddy going to be so mad, Mama shaking him, _what were you thinking?_ Trying to remember what he'd been thinking, deciding thinking had very little to do with it, until the spaceship was on its way to the moon station, leaving Caprica City northwest spaceport behind.

He remembers thinking: _one hour flight duration to the moon station, one hour back._ That's what the captain said. He remembers thinking: _back in an hour or two if there's no trouble. That's what Mama said._

Mostly, later, he remembers thinking: _maybe there will be trouble, down on Caprica, and Mama and Daddy won't notice we're gone until we get back._

*

They're found on the third day, when a harried-looking woman with a cleaning cart opens the door. Tom's hungry. Luke's hungry; they've managed to sneak out, once or twice, long enough to run to the head or grab snacks off an unwatched serving tray, but the liner is crowded and the closet is the only place they can hide without people stumbling over them. It's cramped and it's dark and it smells strongly of cleaning chemicals, and by now the prospect of getting in trouble with strange grownups seems worth it for a hot meal and a bed with blankets.

Luke's lost track of time. Tom slept a little; Luke tried to, twice, but both times he was jerked awake by the stomach-twisting jolt of jump flux.

He's tired of the captain's announcements – the funny, choked sort of voice over the hallway intercom, talking about casualties, and rationing, and military escorts. And he'd rather face a dozen angry grownups if one of them will explain to Tom what all this means, so he doesn't have to.

"Poor darlings, where are your parents?" Luke can't answer that. They blink at her, half awake and wrapped in stolen blankets. The cleaning lady stares at them a few seconds longer, before bursting into loud, messy tears. She drops to her knees, pulls them both into a hug before they can squirm away. Her shirt smells like laundry soap, and he can hear Tom crying, soft, confused, frightened sobs, because grownups don't cry and this doesn't make sense.

Luke doesn't cry, not then. And he keeps that as some comfort, later.

The cleaning lady - her name is Selene - herds them down to the kitchen, where she makes a bed for them out of a nest of blankets. The next few days blur into each other, punctuated by FTL jumps at frequent, regular intervals; when the Cylons jump in almost on top of the Fleet for the tenth time, he's too tired to be scared anymore, and finally falls asleep.

They're still jumping when he wakes up, every thirty-three minutes, Selene says. The lights flicker on and off as they jump; the FTL drive is draining power from other sections of the ship. But somehow, it's not as scary as it was in the closet.

Selene takes advantage of the break between jumps to power up the oven, and digs a frozen pie out of the freezer and heats up two huge slices. They're still cold in the middle, but Luke doesn't mind; he eats half of his, and shoves the plate over to Tom.

He almost starts to relax, then, puts his head down on the table is almost asleep when the intercom starts speaking again. The clock is at thirty-six minutes and counting, and no sign of the Cylons. "We think we've lost 'em," the captain says.

Relief is short-lived. A couple hours later, the captain makes another announcement: the liner has about a dozen "unaccompanied minors" on board whose parents are unaccounted for, and tonight there'll be a meeting in the rec room for anyone who'll volunteer to take one or two, "for the foreseeable future".

Selene says yes, the captain means Luke and Tom, too.

Luke says he needs to use the head, and goes to look for the captain.

"Sir," he says. You're supposed to call a captain "sir", he knows that, and he offers a salute, like he's seen the Fleet people do back on Caprica. "Me and my brother, we don't need new parents."

The captain sighs, shakes his head and looks at the floor. "Son, as long as you and your brother are on my boat, I have to make sure you're looked after."

"I can look after my brother." He bites his lip, promises himself he won't cry. "I can look after myself."

"Unless you're seventeen, law says you can't." The captain turns away as several grownups come out of the lift, heading toward him. Luke wonders if he could get away with saying he's seventeen.

"I can help clean things." He's watched the cleaners through the closet keyhole for days; he can push a mop like that. "I can be part of your crew. I'll wash dishes –"

The captain is already walking away. "I'm sorry, son."

"I don't want new parents." He says it softly, though, 'cause he's not sure his voice won't quiver.

But the captain hears, and stops, looking back. "I know," he says. "Nobody does."

*

Anna is tall, with wavy blonde hair and a tan from the beaches of Picon. Mark is thin and wiry, with round glasses and a beard, and a quiet way of talking that still makes everyone listen. Anna and Mark have been married five years, and just come back from the honeymoon they'd finally saved enough to take.

They had a three-year-old daughter waiting for them with Anna's sister in Caprica's moon station spaceport.

They came to the captain's meeting to take in one child, they said. "I don't know about two," Anna says, looking at Mark. "It's a pretty small cabin already." She doesn't think Luke hears her.

The next lady who speaks doesn't think Luke hears her, either – "I could take one of them," and then the captain pulls her and Anna and Mark aside and Luke wonders if he can will himself and Tom invisible if he stays still long enough.

It _is_ a small cabin, but Anna and Mark take them both. Anna seems anxious to make them feel better, and keeps apologizing for the untidy cabin – it looks clean enough to Luke – and straightening up as she shows them around. She keeps asking them if they need anything.

Mark says nothing, but he's the one who tucks them into the one bunk they'll be sharing, and his beard feels scratchy when he kisses them goodnight.

There's a bedroom with one bunk, and a closet-sized head with a strictly regulated supply of water – two minutes for both of them to wash all over, counted on a timer, in the mornings. There are other kids here somewhere – he saw them at the meeting – but none live on this hall, and they aren't allowed out into other parts of the ship unless Anna or Mark is with them.

Anna says the blessing over meals each morning – prayers to Hera, instead of Athena, and Tom starts to correct her before Luke kicks him under the table.

"Don't argue," he hisses at Tom later, as they're getting dressed.

"But what if Athena gets mad at us for ignoring her?"

"Pray to her before bed, if you're worried about it. You should pray to all of them before bed, anyway. But if Miss Anna gets mad she'll send one of us to somebody else's cabin. You don't want that, do you?"

"Maybe I do." Tom scowls at the deckplates, and Luke bites the inside of his cheek, hard, against the threat of sudden tears. "You're no fun anymore."

He doesn't have time to be fun anymore. He has to take care of Tom, and it's a lot more work than he expected. A kind of routine develops, as the days go by and turn into weeks, and Luke starts to think he's getting the hang of things. Still, things change sometimes without warning.

Anna and Mark go to meetings, with the other "new parents" on the liner. Mostly, they go to other cabins and leave Tom and Luke alone, but once they all crowded into Anna and Mark's cabin, and Mark told Tom and Luke to go play in the hallway.

The lady who offered to take one of them at the first meeting shows up first, and Luke sits outside the door half-sick with dread through the entire hour, while Tom paces and fidgets and sulks because he's being ignored.

After one of these meetings, Anna calls Luke into the tiny living room, where she's sitting at the table with a book, and asks if he knows how to read. He says yes, and in a burst of inspiration volunteers to teach Tom so she won't be bothered. She and Tom have been spending more time together, in the last week or so, and he's afraid Tom is pestering her.

He almost thinks she looks disappointed when he offers, but she agrees that it sounds like a good idea. The only book she'll let them have is an old prayer book – he knows she has others, but they're "not appropriate for his age", whatever that means. He sits on the couch with Tom while Tom fidgets and Luke fights the urge to glance over at Anna every three minutes to see if he's annoying her by talking too loud.

The book opens with invocations to Zeus and to Poseidon, and Tom isn't really paying attention. Luke doesn't really want to read about two-story waves and thunderbolts hurled from the sky, either. He elbows Tom, harder than he needs to but he's angry and frustrated and he wants Mama and Daddy to come back and make Tom behave, and he knows they won't. They're gone, under a wave or struck by a thunderbolt, and it's just him and Tom alone with stranger grownups and Tom is sulking.

"This is _dumb._ Mama won't mind if we have fun –"

"She's not Mama! Don't say that!" He's almost yelling. Anna and Tom are both staring at him now, and Tom's eyes fill with tears before he throws the book on the floor and runs to the other room.

Luke sits on the couch and tries not to cry. If she sees him cry, he's not sure he'll ever forgive her. Or himself.

*

They call it New Caprica, which is the lamest name he's ever heard. But there's an atmosphere, air that smells like ozone and damp and a hint of unfamiliar spices. And rain, and mud.

Brown grass and mud, but _open land,_ as far as the eye can see, and the second day they skip out while they're supposed to be helping Anna plant the vegetable fields, and pelt headlong down the main thoroughfare, nothing more than a muddy space between two rows of tents, mud slippery and churned up by hundreds of feet. They run across the vacant fields outside the clustered tents, arms out and whooping, pretending to fly. Glorying in miles and miles to run and no walls as far as the horizon.

For the first time in months his brother's face splits in that wide grin. For the first time in months he's the cool big brother again.

It doesn't last.

Food is scarce, at first – the vegetables are growing, green and healthy, but the plants are young yet, and won't be ready to eat for months. Anna scolds them all for eating too much. Luke scolds Tom one too many times, and Tom starts to cry.

Anna and Mark pitch a tent a few rows over from the market area, furnished with blankets and cushions stripped from the liner and a table made from soft local wood that splinters easily. Mark lets him watch as he cuts the wood, shows him how to sand the rough edges down. Mark isn't like Anna - he doesn't seem to mind that Luke doesn't want to talk to him. He's _not_ Daddy, but Tom cries whenever Luke reminds him of this. And by the time they've finished sanding down the table legs, Luke is glad for the company and the silence, broken only by the rhythmic rasp of sand on wood.

Anna and Mark go to market to haggle with the hunters for what game they've brought back, bringing back cuts of meat or whole small animals that taste greasy and strange, even seasoned with the dwindling supply of salt they have with them. Luke and Tom help in the fields in the mornings; in the afternoons, the rains come, and they sit in the tent and play whatever quiet games they can think of and try to ignore how hungry they are.

Some days, Anna and Mark snap at each other, and Mark will go out even though it's raining, and weed some more. Sometimes, Luke goes with him, because it feels better to do something than sit in the tent and try to be invisible. Some nights, Luke can hear Anna crying.

Six months after they land, Tom tells him Anna has a baby inside of her.

Luke thinks he's making it up; he stares at her all through breakfast, but she doesn't look any different. She looks tired and gaunt and a little pale, and he can't see where she'd have room inside her to hide it. But she stares into the pantry box with tears in her eyes as she's cooking dinner that night, and he thinks maybe they don't have enough food for two kids and a baby, and the baby is going to replace one of them.

He starts haunting the market square, steals food from the vendors whenever he can. Small things, handfuls of wild berries and already-cooked rodent carcasses, and the first of the cultivated vegetables that are starting to appear. He's good at sneaking, by now.

He and Tom work out a deal – Tom won't eat more than Luke serves him at meal times, no matter how hungry he is, and Luke will give him something else afterwards, when Anna and Mark are not around, if he's still hungry.

Tom wants to know _where did it come from?,_ and he makes the angry grownup look before he can stop himself, says _eat it and don't tell anyone and don't ask stupid questions._ Then, when Tom finds out, he wants to help steal stuff, too. Luke forbids it. "You suck at sneaky, you'll get us caught."

Tom pouts, says "Will _not,_ " and stomps off.

If there is a baby, it isn't eating anything, or else Anna's feeding it in secret. But he's getting better at stealing every day. Maybe if they eat less, Anna will decide to keep all three of them.

*

The captain dies in the first week of the occupation.

Anna and Mark fight more, now; Anna doesn't cry anymore. She sits at the window and stares at the mud, one hand flat against her belly, and her face is drawn and worried. Luke hears Mark coughing at night, as he tries to go to sleep.

Her belly has gotten bigger – almost big enough he might believe she does have a baby in there, after all. A very small baby. Maybe if it's that small, it won't eat so much.

The Cylons' arrival has brought an end to the food shortages – whether because they brought extra or because there aren't as many people left, he isn't sure. Luke only saw one dead body, lying in the street, arms flung out and eyes closed. The man might have been sleeping, except people don't sleep in the middle of the street, and the mud around him was dark and wet.

Mostly, people are just missing. Mark says the Cylons clean up fast. _Efficient_ is the word he uses; it's the same word Mama used to use when Tom dawdled with the laundry.

Anna and Mark stay up late arguing, now – his voice is low and rough, hers cracked and fragile, but he doesn't hear tears. _Three mouths to feed, soon, and how do you think we'll manage without you?_ He lies awake, stomach clenched tight, and strains to hear Mark's response. _Fracking collaborators,_ is all he can make out. And Mark coughs again.

He starts to think Mark knows he steals from the market vendors, but he's not sure 'cause Mark doesn't say anything about it. The closest he comes is one night after dinner, pulling Luke aside while Tom fidgets by the tent flap, not-so-subtly waiting for the rest of his dinner.

"I have some work I have to go and do," Mark says, and something in the way he says it lets Luke know this is a secret, as much as his own trips to the market are. "You and Mama, you take care of each other while I'm gone. And take care of Tom."

Mark starts going out late nights, after that, coming back halfway through breakfast.

Tom is sick. _Pneumonia,_ Anna says, and he doesn't like that word. It's a scary word, the way she says it, flinging it at Mark like a weapon. Soon Mark is sick, too. He stays in bed all day, coughing, but he still goes out one or two nights a week.

He looks relieved when Anna comes back with medicine. She won't say where she got it. Mark won't touch the stuff, just tells Tom to take his medicine like a good boy, and stays home until Tom gets better.

Tom gets better within a week, with half the medicine left in the bottle. Mark goes out again, two days later, and he doesn't come back.

*

Mona is fifteen, and she's pretty without being _girly,_ big blue eyes and long brown hair and a throwing arm that's better than Luke's.

He collects stones, arranging them in a neat pile by their feet. She watches the road. They're bored, waiting for nightfall. "Here comes one!" Luke says, pointing.

She grins, broad and not nice.

Anna doesn't like Mona. Anna doesn't like most of Luke's friends. Since Mark's gone, he spends less time in the tent, and less time with Tom. Mostly, he hangs out with a group of older kids, kids without grownups, who get by stealing stuff and know how to avoid the Cylons.

The sky is greying, dull red in the west. He can hear the rumble of the police truck's engine before he peeks out from behind the shop tent. One of the big armored carriers, but no bullet-heads in sight. Dust blurs the outlines of the wheels as it disappears behind a nearby hill, hazes the hilltop before it reappears.

"Fracking collaborators." He rolls the words around in his mouth, long and harsh. Mona snorts, nudges him with her elbow. He grabs a rock.

_They're a bad crowd,_ Anna says, but Luke helps them – he's small, and less suspicious, says Jack. Jack's the oldest of the gang, around seventeen. Luke is their scout, and in return he gets a share of whatever they make off with. It's more than he got snatching a handful of fruit here and there on his own.

A distant clang, bouncing off reinforced armor – two clangs, and they take off running, weaving between shop tents and open-air stands until they can't run any more. "You'll make a ball-player yet, kid," Mona says, but there's an angry edge to her laugh.

Anna doesn't approve, but she doesn't know how to steal, and the vegetables from the garden are almost gone and he needs to take care of her, too. He doesn't say it to her like that, of course. Grownups are funny about that sort of thing.

Mona disappears down a side lane before he gets to their hangout, with a squeeze of his shoulder and a wave. It's almost dark when he arrives at the spot – a great spreading tree with a thick trunk and maybe half a dozen other kids sitting on blankets between the roots. The tents dwindle at this edge of the city, and the ones that are here are ragged and barely maintained. _A rough crowd over there,_ Anna said. _You stay away from them._

Some of them, like Mona, are okay. Some of them aren't very nice at all, but he's useful to them, and in return he can bring home more food than he might otherwise.

"No jobs tonight," Jack tell him, when he sits on the grass and leans back against a gnarled root. Someone pulls out a deck of cards, and they play for rights to the warmest blankets, as the wind cuts across the plains outside of town.

It's been full dark for more than an hour when Leda shows up. She's one of Mona's friends, and she's got half a pint of bruised, squashy berries and a long loaf of bread – and a pile of credit chips in her pocket. Silently, she passes around the money and the food, and everyone stops playing long enough to gulp down a few bites. For some of them, this is breakfast.

He shoves half his share of bread into a pocket, and with his mouth full of berries, asks, "Where'd you get all this? I thought Jack said no jobs tonight."

One of the older boys laughs, and it doesn't sound friendly. "Not that kind of a job, kid." And times like these he hates being called "kid", he hates being the youngest and the looks on their faces and the feeling they all know something he doesn't.

"Too old for that sort of work already, kid," Jack says, and his smile is cold. "That brother of yours, though - isn't it about time he earns his keep? Pays his -"

Jack doesn't finish the sentence, 'cause his nose is bleeding and someone else is dragging Luke away from him, swearing. "You shut up about my brother!"

Luke doesn't understand what Jack means, exactly, but Jack's sneer and the note in his voice tells him enough, and he doesn't want Jack talking that way about Tom. "You shut up!" he says again, and he pulls free and runs, 'cause it's either that or take another swing at Jack or burst into tears like a big fat baby.

He stops running before he gets to their tent, sits on the ground behind an abandoned tent and listens, hard, before he hugs his knees to his chest and starts to cry, 'cause he's scared and confused and angry and so tired of having to play grownup when there's so much he doesn't know. Some things he's not sure he wants to know.

He wonders where Mona is.

It's starting to rain when he gets home. Tom meets him outside the flap, wide-eyed and breathless and looking scared. "The baby," he starts, darting a fearful look back at the tent, and Luke wants to shake him.

"What about the baby?" he asks, still not convinced there is one – still not convinced this isn't some let's-pretend game Anna and Tom made up to amuse themselves.

"Mama says –" Tom swallows, leans in close like he's telling a secret. "She's says it's coming _out_ of her."

Luke frowns, brought up short, pushing the anger down where Tom won't see. "Is it supposed to do that?"

"I don't know! She didn't say." Luke pushes past him, toward the tent, but Tom pulls him back. "She says to stay out here!"

They sit outside the flap as the clouds darken, and Tom looks over after a minute to ask, "Did you get any food?"

Anger flares again, hard and sharp. He passes over the half-squashed piece of bread without a word, and folds his arms so Tom can't see his skinned knuckles. Silence follows, and for the first time he hears Anna – a low, whimpering sound like Tom makes when he's trying desperately not to cry.

Tom's voice is small. "Is Mama going to die?"

"No!" He wraps his arm around Tom, pulls his brother against his side, lets Tom lean his head on his shoulder. Lets out a long, shaky breath and tries to remember how to relax.

He can hear another voice from inside the tent - an unfamiliar woman, speaking too low for him to make out the words.

The rain comes down hard, now, sliding off the tent's awning to splash in brown puddles by their feet.

*

Four months, people talked about the Admiral coming back - in whispers, in broad hints and desperate staring at the sky. When it finally happens, it happens very fast.

He remembers evac drills back home, when Mama and Daddy would make them repeat back every step of the plan - where to meet, which exits to use, always stay together. The ringing shriek of sirens announcing the drill, pilots and baggage handlers and dock workers moving quickly and confidently, all in their proper patterns.

There weren't any sirens this time - only people screaming. No patterns, only chaos, from the time Galactica appeared in the sky until the Raptors docked and they were herded down to one of the battlestar's lower cargo bays.

Two or three times a day, the guards come by with the ration cart. Their uniforms are clean, but their faces have that funny, pinched look that means they haven't slept in a while.

The baby is crying.

Anna's not asleep, but she doesn't seem to notice. They've been back with the Fleet, aboard Galactica, for less than two days, and he thinks the baby hasn't stopped crying except to sleep. Anna's face is pale, and she doesn't look at him or Tom or the baby lying on her lap, just stares at the far bulkhead. She hasn't spoken to him since he found her, and if she's eaten anything it was during the short time he was asleep.

Tom reaches over, pats the baby's head, but it doesn't quiet.

The line is forming already, if it can be called that – a snakelike mass of shoving, shouting, swearing people. He gives Tom a "stay put" glare, leaves him with Anna by the wall. He ducks around a burly miner and slips into line in front of a woman in a battered brown coat. She doesn't notice; she's too busy cursing at the man shoving her from behind.

"Quiet, there! Settle down!" The guard's voice is grating, exhausted, but it carries across the cargo bay that's been home to New Caprica's refugees since the evacuation. Since Admiral Adama came back for them. "There's plenty for everyone if you'll wait your damn turn!"

Luke's not paying attention to anything but the people nearest him, jostling and cursing. They're all big and hungry and angry at being kept here in this smelly room for two days, and he's small and they're not looking at him. If he falls down they won't notice if they step on him.

But they don't notice when he cuts into line in the middle, or when he keeps moving forward, sliding in front of people as soon as he sees them distracted, as soon as there's a spot to slip through.

He doesn't _really_ think they'll run out of food before they get to the end of the line. They haven't yet – he's pretty sure there would've been a riot. But the faster he gets through the line and back to his spot by the wall, the less chances he might fall and get stepped on.

Someone shoves the woman in front of him; she turns to shout at a short, mean-looking man and he darts around in front of her.

That's when he realizes he can't hear the baby crying anymore.

He stops, feels a sudden shove from behind. Shuts his eyes against the noise and the curses and _too many people,_ takes a deep breath before he hears it again – an angry, frightened, hitching wail, cutting above the din and confusion.

He doesn't remember boarding the Raptor. He remembers the spaceship falling, glowing orange like Apollo's chariot in the sky; he remembers Tom crying, saying let go you're hurting me before he realized they were holding hands. He remembers the long, dazed shuffle from the flight deck, through grey hallways into this cargo bay. He remembers turning to look for Tom, finding nothing but a sea of unfamiliar faces.

He remembers the baby crying.

A sound like a hacksaw across raw nerves, and he followed it through the crowd to the far wall and there was Anna and the baby. And Tom.

He hugs three ration packs to his chest, no hands free to offer a salute, so he settles for a quiet, "Thank you." The guard blinks, looking surprised, before he slips through the crowd and slides down to sit against the wall next to Tom. The baby is quiet, now – nursing, finally, half-covered by Anna's fringed shawl. Anna stares at the deckplates when he drops a ration pack on her lap.

Tom sits next to her, idly bouncing a small red ball up and down on the deckplates. Luke doesn't know where he got it, and can't remember seeing it before. The ball disappears inside Tom's coat as he reaches for his own meal.

The food vanished quickly - there's not much food, but none of it tastes spoiled. The guards will be back before night shift with a water tank, but they each only get enough for drinking – there hasn't been enough to wash since they got here. Luke can hear the whir of the air scrubbers overhead, but the whole bay still smells like unwashed humans and the head a few meters down.

Tom, finished with dinner, is bouncing the same red ball again when it slips from his fingers and starts rolling across the deck. He scrambles to his feet, running after it, and Luke jumps up to follow him.

"Get back here!"

The ball doesn't roll far - too many people in the way, but someone catches it and hands it back to Tom. Luke skids to a breathless halt beside him, ready to deliver a lecture, when Tom takes off running toward the cargo bay door. "Can't catch me!"

Luke says a very bad word and takes off after him, scared now; he doesn't catch up until they're both in the corridor outside.

Except for them, the corridor is empty. The door shuts behind him, and the noise of the crowd and the hungry line is muted, far away.

Tom stands across the hall, throwing the ball so it bounces against the opposite bulkhead and comes back to him. He's watching Luke, like he knows he's going to get yelled at for having fun, and Luke wonders if he's really turned into that much of a boring grownup. He wonders what Mama and Daddy knew that he doesn't know, that let them take care of Tom and keep him safe without always being the bad guys.

Tom throws the ball and this time Luke steps in and snatches it in midair, taking off toward the end of the hall. He doesn't get far before Tom bumps into him from behind, tripping him; they sprawl flat on the deck and he loses his grip, the ball rolling faster, toward the end of the hall where it meets the main corridor. "Go get it!" he calls to Tom.

"You go get it!" Tom yells, and Luke pushes himself up and runs, toward the dwindling shape of the ball. For a second, his are the only footsteps ringing on the deck, and then Tom shrieks with delighted laughter and takes off after him.


End file.
